Thursday, July 21, 2011

India - from Animal Farm to Angry birds

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, the pigs lead by the Old boar revolted against humans,fought for freedom of all animals. Freedom was won finally. The Pigs were animal heroes. After all Pigs had freed all animals from centuries of atrocities of humans. Many pigs had sacrificed their lives for this freedom. On August 15th, 1947, The Old Boar declared At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, Pigland will awake to life and freedom. Pigs burped. Birds flapped their wings. The snakes hissed. Finally the pigs had made their tryst with destiny and Others thought their's was made as well. Snakes had other ideas. Led to believe by the King Cobra that snakes were god's favourite children and Pigs & Birds were non believers. Snakes declared freedom from pigland and built two independent hives one for the venomous snakes called Snakistan and another for the non venomous snakes called East snakistan.

In the land of pigs also lived birds. Infact many birds and just few pigs. But still it was the land of pigs. The birds knew only to nest and produce more birds, who also nested and produced even more birds. One bright pig in the late 70s wanted every bird to lay no more than 2 eggs. Even a single egg more, the birds were herded together and their beaks cut off.  Birds across country protested.

Mother pig declared Emergency. Many birds were put in cages and their beaks cut off. Birds wanted a leader. One tall bird film star named Amitabh Bacchhan became their icon as the angry young bird in many films. Many believed that the birds have finally arrived. Birds won 449/450 seats in Lok Sabha and the first ever bird govt. took oath in pigland.   Ask the free flying birds to sit in day long lok sabha debates, they are bound to flounder. Birds lost faith in their own bird leaders. Soon the pigs were back to power & regained their status at top of animal class hierarchy.

With an aura of invincibility, Pigs started to show their true colur. Old boar's vision had long died. Now there were saffron pigs, Maoist pigs,urban pigs & rural pigs. Pigs that wore no footwear & pigs that drank their own urine. Saffron pigs swore by their religion, Maoist pigs swore by china. All of them ate more filth than what they needed, even grabbing the whatever little was left for the birds to eat.

With the country running at less than 15 days of bid feed left in its granary, it was staring at a gloomy picture. Then came globalisation, Pigs from USA agreed to help, provided pigland  opened up their markets to dump genetically modified bird feed. Additionally, bright birds from pigland were allowed to write software in USA. Many birds migrated to USA never to return. A new breed emerged Non Resident Pigs (NRPs). Mostly intelligent birds from poor styies, who made it to PITs (Pigland Institute of Technology) and PIMs(Pigland Institute of Management) & from there to US of A. NRPs sent back truck loads of dollars back to pigland. Pigland saw prosperity for the first time since independence. Every pig in pigland could now afford to have filth 3 times a day. The Dark pigs of south could afford their face whitening lotion. The fat pigs of punjab now ate their filth with basmati rice and paneer and showed off their maruti 800 to all who cared.

Across the border, the Snakistan had become envious of the pigland's wealth & prosperity. All they had was venom and all they ever knew was to bite. Little did they know anything about software or democracy. In 1947 & 1965, They tried to bite the pigs of pigland, but pigs were far too thick skinned to even feel a pinch.  A few birds sacrificed their lives, but many more were born and Pigland honoured its heroes and moved on with life.

With no one to bite, venomous snakes from snakistan started to bite its own non venomous brothers in east snakistan. Seizing the opportunity, the pigs helped the non venomous snakes defeat the venomous snaked &  declare independence as Snakedesh, 212th country added to the world map.

Snakistan still licking wounds of insult, decided to wage a proxy war against pigs and pigland. They recruited jobless snakes from north warziristan, indoctrinated them with additional venom imported from gulf countries and infiltrated them through specially designed snake holes across the border. Pigs were caught unawares for the first time. Soon the snakes were stealing eggs from birds all over pigland. Many birds lost their eggs. IT birds in Bangalore, Gujju birds in Mumbai, Punju birds in Delhi. Young birds & old birds, no one was spared. Needless to say, Birds were angry. Questions were asked. Leader Pigs replied with rhetoric, no one understood the reply and life was back to normal.

Money aplenty, now pigs had turned into greedy pigs. There was the telecom pig, commonwealth games pig, adarsh society pig. Birds were angry again. This time they protested differently. Birds across the country decided to starve in protest. Pigs were worried. If the birds dont eat, they wont produce enough filth for the pigs to feast upon. Birds of civil society were soon joined by yoga birds, bollywood star birds and it was mela at Jantar Mantar, when birds of all feathers flocked together & starved together.

Pigs at the pig party office on 10, race course road were shaken. Their leader, the revered pig, who was a great economist finally opened his mouth, only to cough mild and soon shut it close, disappointing all who had waited long to hear from him. 

No one stopping them, Snakes struck again, this time many more birds lost their eggs. Instead of hitting back, the pigs thought it wise not to react to provocation. Pigs across the world praised the resilience of piglanders. Snakistan rejoiced.One Intellectual bird who wrote books & didnt ever lay a egg of her own, participated in seminars justifiying the actions of Snakistan. Common birds sat helplessly in their living rooms seething in anger at this absurdity shown on live TV.

One ultra stupid pig by name Diggy Piggy accused saffron pigs of trying to kill saffron birds, so that it can conveniently blame the snakes for everything. He even wanted to reward one captured snake called kasab, a cup full of gulab jamuns for all the birds he had killed.. Diggy Piggy wanted to appease the minority bird community who inturn only vote for the pig party.. He even said telecom pigs and adarsh society pigs were innocent to please their sub caste, who then decided to support pig party in the next election.
Birds are really angry now. What they will do next?. No one knows.